The scheme of payment for housing and communal services will change: management companies will have more opportunities for fraud

From 2023, it will not be possible to challenge invoices

In Russia, the procedure for paying utility bills will soon change. From 2023, residents of high-rise buildings will pay for general house needs according to the meter, and not according to the standard, as before. What does it mean? If it is quite simple: the hands of management companies have been untied, and now they will be able to spend as many resources as they like, and the final bill can be distributed among all residents of an apartment building. That is, it is possible that their neighbors, law-abiding residents, will pay for the malicious non-payers. It will be impossible to challenge these additional charges, according to experts, even through the courts.

According to the new government decree, from 2023, management companies, when issuing invoices to apartment owners, can, if necessary, go beyond the previously approved parameters. If earlier the Criminal Code was somehow still restrained by regulations for general house needs, now nothing will restrain them. For example, if the pipes were leaking, then everything that exceeded the standards by 5% was paid for by the management company. Now, all such leaks will be paid by residents according to the meter – both for themselves and for malicious non-payers.

“If you don’t go into complex formulas, it goes something like this: the readings of the meter for the previous year are taken, divided into 12 parts, put up at the end of the year, a recalculation takes place,” explained State Duma deputy Svetlana Razvorotneva. That is, this part of the costs will be averaged – and it doesn’t matter if you pay on time or not, save on electricity and water or don’t think …

Recall that the general house needs mainly concern water for washing entrances and electricity for lighting stairs and elevators. Pipe breaks, heat loss (open windows) – you will have to pay for all this.

Where does innovation grow its legs from? During the pandemic, many management companies (MCs), mainly from the regions of Russia, applied for help due to lack of funds. After a while they were heard. But instead of addressing the problem in a targeted way and helping only those management companies that were on the verge of bankruptcy, the state decided not to deal with it pointwise, but to untie the hands of absolutely everyone.

“Now it is in the interests of management companies to go beyond the standards. Surely even those companies that do not need additional funds will take advantage of this opportunity, ”says Konstantin Krokhin, chairman of the Union of Housing Organizations of Moscow, member of the committee on entrepreneurship in housing and communal services of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the Russian Federation.

According to him, it is very difficult to challenge charges. Mostly, the answers will be as follows: we checked everything, no violations were found. State agencies and the court will not help either. “I think that no civil law mechanisms will be developed. The Criminal Code and local lobbyists, who asked to be allowed to earn money, were deliberately allowed to improve their financial situation, ”Krokhin notes.

If the actual consumption is more than the standard, then the tenants will have to pay extra. In this case, residents may be in for a very unpleasant surprise, stresses an expert in the field of housing and communal services, director of the People’s Control Organization Natalya Chernysheva. In order not to face such a fact in a year, it is best to recalculate monthly in order to regularly monitor the possible difference between the standard and meter readings.

“No one has the right to force conscientious owners to pay for their neighbors. And they should be afraid of innovations not for this reason, but for another reason, – continues the interlocutor of MK. – Due to possible leaks, the fee for common house needs may increase. Therefore, you should not wait, but should establish a more frequent procedure for reconciling standards and meters at the general meeting of owners. It is best to check the management company monthly and eliminate all leaks and emergencies in a timely manner.

According to Chernysheva, for those houses that have already paid according to the actual meter readings (having previously voted for this method of calculation and payment), nothing will change. And those who have not yet installed meters will continue to pay according to the standards, but at home they will be required to hold a meeting and install metering devices. But it is still impossible to guarantee that these households will not be overcharged, according to the expert.